'An Absolute Crime'

Setting up a face-off with the White House, Sen. Ken Salazar said this week that along with two other members of the Colorado congressional delegation, he isi sponsoring a bill to restore the traditional 50-50 split between the states and the federal government of mineral leasing revenues on federal land.

The division was changed to 52-48 (in favor of the feds) in a little-noticed provision in the $555 billion appropriations bill signed by President Bush in December. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, whose state stands to lose dozens of millions in mineral royalties, has called the change "an absolute crime."

In other energy news: Colorado offers rebates for residential solar-power systems; huge new natural gas pipeline sends fuel east from the Front Range; and coal hits near-record production levels.
[more]

Documentary Looks at Wolf Reintroduction

No wildlife species is as iconic and controversial as the wolf. Canis Lupus is a symbol of wildness and healthy ecosystems to some, but to others it is a callous killer and an economic threat.

Loathed and loved, the American Gray Wolf has gone through a tumultuous history in the West. They were hunted as vermin to virtual extinction by the early 20th Century, reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and now are around 1,500-strong across the Northern Rockies. Biologists say wolves are officially recovered in the West and should be removed from the Endangered Species List, but – true to form – disagreements over wolf management between pro-wolf and anti-wolf groups has delisting at a standstill.

In 1999, journalist William Campbell began a documentary film to tell the story of what wolf reintroduction meant for people living in wolf territory. The result, “Wolves in Paradise,” sheds invaluable light on this story, giving a face and a voice to the many people trying to live with this species. [more]

Introducing...

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In the Spring Issue and online here:

• Montana’s Cash Cowboy
• Real Ranch Living: Not Everyone is Selling Out
• Essay: The Family Farm, Version 2.0
• Essay: Tracks Across A Landscape
• Have Your Ranch & Develop It, Too
• Design Showcase: The Big and Little of Western Building
• Stuff It: Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species?
• Traffic Perplexes New Western Communities
• Boise in Its Own Little Bubble
• Revenge of the Resource Economy
• Spotlight North Idaho: On the Agenda: Youth, Growth & Silver
• Spotlight North Idaho: Players of the Panhandle
• Spotlight North Idaho: Coeur d’Alene Tribe Rides the Idaho Boom

[more]

By Robert Struckman, 2-01-08 | comments (23) | email story | print story

 

FutureGen's Future Cloudy

Since I detailed the gaps in Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's ambitious plans for "clean" coal plants in his state last month, the whole clean-coal movement has suffered a major blow. This week the Department of Energy said it would cancel funding for the FutureGen project, which is planning a commercial-scale coal plant with a carbon sequestration system in Matoon, Illinois.

Citing the high cost and potential difficulty in building a futuristic coal plant of this size, the DOE says it will cut its clean-coal funding and shift the dollars to smaller projects.

To say this is a disaster for developing less-destructive forms of coal generation – which still supplies about half of the nation's electricity – is an understatement.

In other energy news: Xcel Energy sees whopping profit surge; lawmakers object to shift in federal minerals-leasing revenue; and Colorado officials fire back at oil and gas producers over proposed new drilling regulations. [more]

a bluff?

Attempting to transform the way energy is produced and consumed in the West, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has done his best to avoid antagonizing the oil and gas industry. Unfortunately he hasn't succeeded.

The appointment of Matt Baker, the executive director of Environment Colorado, to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission riled the oil-and-gas officials. The drafting of new energy-development regulations, now under revision by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, has infuriated them – so much so that energy-industry leaders are threatening to pack up their rigs and decamp.

This is bluster, of course: the oil and gas industry goes where the oil and gas is, and it's here, on the Western Slope. But Ritter is savvy enough to know that his ambitious plans for remaking the development and production of energy will not succeed if oil and gas producers refuse to go along. It'll be interesting to see how he responds to these latest threats.

In other energy news: EU gets down to brass tacks on moving toward non-carbon-based fuels; 2007 brings warmer temps – and a hot alternative-energy sector; and Xcel Energy charts an ambitious renewable-energy course.
[more]

Energy Development

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer kicked off Saturday’s symposium on oil and gas development with a talk that focused on the strength of Montana’s economy -- a strength not entirely based on oil and gas revenues, and one that might provide the bastion to keep the energy industry from, well, basically, treating us all like we were Wyoming.

As wildlife biologists, consultants, and policy makers told their stories of energy development in Colorado and Wyoming, a pattern emerged of citizens extremely worried about the current impacts to land, water, and wildlife, and what would be left behind when the boom was done (in 20 to 35 years) but unsure of how to demand change. [more]

The CO2 Underground

The U.S. Department of Energy will fund a 10-year, $38 million project to study the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations on the Gulf Coast. For the next 18 months, the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas will pump about a million tons a year of CO2 into brine formations up to 10,000 feet below ground, near the Cranfield oil field about 15 miles east of Natchez, Miss.

Capturing and storing 60 percent of the CO2 emitted by U.S. coal-fired power plants would require the transport and disposal of a daily volume roughly equal to U.S. oil consumption per day, according to an MIT report.
Texas alone could hold 40 years' worth of US emissions.

In other energy news: shale-oil exploration still only prospective on the Western Slope; Gov. Ritter appoints an environmentalist to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission; and state lawmakers try to head off uranium mining in Northern Colorado.
[more]

Specialty Products Give Mills an Edge

Montana’s wood products industry may be suffering, but it’s a relatively bright spot in a gloomy North American market.

“It’s a market that takes a higher percentage of higher-grade lumber with higher value,” said Random Lengths editor Shawn Church. The independent, Oregon-based Random Lengths publishes data and analysis on the wood products industry.

Trucks are still rolling from Montana mills, carting finished product to places like Chicago and Arizona. [more]

Busted in Bali

As the warmest year on record moves down to its last few days, U.S. politicians in Washington D.C. and Bali, Indonesia continued to block any meaningful change in energy policy.

For the second time in a week the U.S. Senate failed to pass the long-delayed energy bill, failing by one vote to shut off a Republican threatened filibuster. Even more disgraceful was the performance of U.S. "negotiators" at the global climate-change conference in Bali, where as of Friday morning a final agreement was still being held up by American refusal to countenance any form of mandatory carbon-emission reductions.

In other energy news: food prices hit record levels, mostly due to ethanol subsidies; Silicon Valley venture firm rewards scientist for carbon-capture process; and a bill to research ways to transport and store CO2 gets support from business leaders. [more]

Movement on Climate Change

There's encouraging news on the energy-politics front this week, as congressional leaders look set to agree on a long-delayed energy bill, world leaders prepare for a major climate-change conference in Bali, Indonesia, and the federal Energy Information Administration reported a 1.5% drop in total greenhouse-gas emissions in 2006 compared to the previous year.

Even Colorado Republicans got into the act, saying they are readying a slate of environmental bills that will include measures to support the logging of beetle-infested pine trees and encouraging consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances. [more]